


First Therapy Appointment

by a_mind_at_work



Series: Anxiety Laf [2]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Gen, M/M, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 11:32:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8843077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_mind_at_work/pseuds/a_mind_at_work
Summary: I had HELLA fun with the historical references in this one. I may or may not have spent more time than necessary researching which person from history his therapist should be...
Chill with me on tumblr! @undiscoveredstory (more fanfics await you there!)





	

Lafayette needed to escape. Escape the car, his body, the destination. He wanted to run until his legs gave out and let him crumble into oblivion. He settled for scratching at his forearm. It was all he had, seeing as he was buckled into the front seat next to Martha, who was driving Laf to what he saw as his certain doom, but what she saw as his salvation.

Laf sucked in a shaky breath and shut his eyes, leaning back against the headrest. He tried to imagine he was somewhere else, but all he could focus on was the feel of the seat under his thighs, the little jolt of the car when Martha slowed to turn, the purr of the engine as she parked then turned it off.

“Come on, sweetie,” she said gently, her hand resting on Lafayette’s forearm, the skin slightly irritated from his earlier scratching.

He had no idea how he would keep from doing that once he was in the therapist’s office. He didn’t want her to think he was crazy as soon as he sat down. No. He had to somehow make it through the entire hour without tipping this woman off to the frayed state of his mind so that he could tell Martha it just didn’t seem to be working.

He knew Alexander had gone to therapy, and that he still went. But he wasn’t Alex. Alex was good at talking, while Laf… Lafayette was good at talking with his friends, his family, sure. But what would this therapist think of his strange mish-mash of English and French? His languages only got more jumbled when he was anxious. Would she even understand him?

Lafayette didn’t have much time to truly fret over these thoughts because Martha was leading him into a building–– it looked more like an office building than he’d expected–– and up two short flights of stairs.

As they walked down the hall, Laf took in the rest of the building. It was offices. Not for other psychologists, but for businesses. What those businesses were or what they did, exactly, Laf had no clue. But it made him feel better in an odd way. While he was in there spilling his guts, life would be going on as normal all around him.

They made it to the end of the hallway and turned into a little alcove that had one door with a nameplate on it. Laf couldn’t focus enough to read it. Martha turned the knob and gestured for Lafayette to enter.

He stepped in, taking a shaky breath as he scanned the small room. There were about eight chairs, some magazines on the table and shelf, and some benign paintings of flowers that were hung on the light blue walls. There was also a small, white, circular machine emitting a loud whirring sound right by the only other door aside from the one they’d come in through, which he assumed was the door to the therapist’s office.

He took a seat next to Martha and resumed scratching his forearm. Martha pulled out the paperwork she’d completed ahead of time and handed it to Laf.

“This is for you to give to her, okay?” she said kindly.

Laf took it, slightly put-off that he had to stop his scratching to do so, and sighed. Just then, the door opened.

A woman with kind brown eyes and silver hair pulled back into a perfect bun smiled at Laf and Martha. She was wearing a light blue dress that fell just past her knees–– a style that didn’t work for many people, but somehow suited her perfectly. She reminded Laf of someone…

Before he could figure it out, she was gesturing for him to come forward, her hand outstretched. He took it, nervously shaking it. Martha stepped forward and followed suit.

“My name is Dr. Livingston,” she said with a smile. “But most of my patients call me by my first name, Engeltie.” She laughed. “Well, they call me by my nickname, Neltie.”

“I’m Martha Washington and this is my son, Gilbert.” Martha placed a hand on Laf’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

“I go by Lafayette,” he quietly added.

Neltie smiled at him. _Whose smile was that?_

“Well, come on in, Lafayette,” she said. Then, addressing Martha, she added “sometimes the initial session runs over a bit. Feel free to get any shopping or errands done.”

Martha smiled at her appreciatively and nodded. “Thank you, but I’ll wait here.”

With that, Neltie shut the door. Laf perched himself on the edge of the blue couch. He stared at Neltie as she took her seat in the chair across from him, yellow notepad and pencil in hand. She smiled at him when she looked up and found him staring. Laf quickly, looked down, flustered he’d been caught in the act.

Neltie just laughed. “Older than you expected?”

Except she didn’t look _that_ old. “Non,” Laf said, his voice higher than usual. That always happened when he was anxious. He hated it. “Rather, you… “ he took a deep breath, trying to string the sentence together in English instead of using his usual _how you say_ filler for when he was thinking. “You look like someone I know, but I cannot place exactly who.”

He hoped his English was good. He always forgot it faster when he was really anxious. He hoped she wasn’t judging him.

Laf didn’t think it was possible, but Neltie’s smile grew bigger. “Would that person happen to be my granddaughter?”

Laf cocked an eyebrow at her. She didn’t appear old enough to have a granddaughter that Laf would know.

“Eliza Schuyler. People say the resemblance is uncanny.”

Laf’s jaw dropped. “ _You_ are Eliza’s grandmother?”

Neltie laughed. “Yes I am! And of course I’m her siblings’ grandmother as well, but Eliza is the one who looks like––”

“Your, how you say, clone?” Laf interjected. His eyes widened as he realized what he’d done. He’d already used his lingual filler. He _really_ hadn’t wanted to do that. Why couldn’t he keep control of that one thing? He already couldn’t even control his own emotions. Now his words were betraying him, too?

“What just happened there?” Neltie asked softly.

Laf shook his head. If she hadn’t caught it, he certainly wasn’t going to embarrass himself further by detailing it out.

“We can come back to that,” she said easily. “Today we’re just gonna chat a bit, get to know each other, talk about what brings you here.”

Laf nodded, biting down hard on his lower lip. He was going to use his words as carefully as possible.

“But first I’ll start off by introducing myself. I’m Dr. Engeltie Livingston, but you can call me Neltie. Don’t call me Mrs. Livingston because that’s my mother,” she said with a laugh. “I didn’t take my husband’s last name,” she explained.

For some reason that made Laf like her even more than he already did. She had spunk. He could see where Peggy got her spunk from. And she had kind eyes, just like Eliza.

“I went to Columbia for my doctorate, where I worked a lot with youth who suffer from anxiety.”

Laf squirmed in his seat as he realized _he_ was a youth with anxiety.

“I did some work in a state hospital for adults after that, worked for a private psychiatric hospital for youth, then, twenty years ago, I finally set-up my own practice,” she said with a smile. “And I’ve been here ever since.” She paused for a moment. Laf fidgeted in the sudden silence. “Do you have any questions for me?”

He had about a million, but he wasn’t about to voice any of them just yet. He shook his head.

“Well, if any come up as we chat, feel free to ask. Not just today, but during any of our sessions,” she said, her tone turning more serious. “I want you to know that these are _your_ sessions, Lafayette. You get to choose what we talk about. If you’re unsure, I can direct you, but I want you to know that you’re in control here. You can stop talking about something whenever you want.”

Laf stiffly nodded his head. Having some control would be nice. He wanted to believe her, but he wasn’t so sure he could.

“And while we’re talking about this kind of stuff, I’ll add that anything you say in here stays between you and me. The only time I’ll break that confidentiality is if I fear you’re a threat to yourself or others. So this means I won’t even tell your parents what we talk about, okay?”

Laf took a moment to absorb that information. He’d heard Alex chatter about it at some point, but Alexander talked about _a lot_ of things. There was never any way Laf could remember them all.

“Okay,” he said softly.

She smiled at him before raising her pencil, like she was getting ready to write. “So, tell me a bit about yourself? Let’s start with school and stuff you like to do?”

“Okay,” Laf said again. He took a deep breath. “I’m a junior in high school, like Eliza,” he added with a smile.

“How is school for you?” Neltie asked.

“Good, mostly,” Laf said, looking down. He opened his mouth to add on, but quickly shut it.

“It looked like you wanted to add something there? Why don’t you go ahead?” Neltie gently encouraged him.

“Oh, I was just thinking that school this year is, uh, how you––” he internally reprimanded himself for the slip up. “Stressful,” he blurted out. _Now I can’t even speak in full sentences, great,_ he thought.

“What do you think is making it stressful?”

Laf simply shook his head. Everything was making it stressful, or everything was stressful because of it. He couldn’t tell the difference.

“How about we talk a little bit about why you came here to see me today.”

When Laf was silent for a few moments, Neltie prompted him again. “It’s okay not to have the right words to describe how you’ve been feeling, Lafayette. The important thing is that we try.”

Lafayette gave a stiff nod in response. He didn’t like being that difficult, but he also didn’t like being there.

“On your intake form it says you’ve been experiencing some anxiety and panic attacks?” Her voice went up at the end, her tone softening even more, which Laf hadn’t thought was previously possible.

He swallowed hard. “Oui, I mean, yes,” he stuttered.

“Vous savez que je parle français, non?” Neltie said. She smiled kindly at him as his eyes widened in surprise.

“Non!” he exclaimed.

“Oui,” she said with an even larger smile than before. “So we can conduct sessions in either or both languages.” She looked at him for a moment, her stare becoming more serious. “Either way, Lafayette, I will understand you.”

Laf’s breath hitched as he realized the deeper meaning in the statement. _It might be nice to be understood_ , he thought. _Why not give it a shot?_

He took a deep breath and began.

**Author's Note:**

> I had HELLA fun with the historical references in this one. I may or may not have spent more time than necessary researching which person from history his therapist should be...
> 
> Chill with me on tumblr! @undiscoveredstory (more fanfics await you there!)


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